Learn to Love the Lessors

Whenever one reads the news, good or bad, there is praise or criticism for

how the world is coming out. The nightly news can focus on a student who is ten

and already finished college, or it can focus on another student who was caught

with a gun. In both situations, how one was raised comes up into question.

Family rituals such as saying grace before a meal, can make people hesitate

before they eat for the rest of their life. Education plays a role for a long time as

well. A student who is reading works of the great philosophers by age six will

have a better understanding of the world, which might cause angst and disgust

with society or joy in their environment. In Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

two siblings are given an exceptional education by their older brothers, Seymour

and Buddy. Resentment is fabricated as the children now grown up, realize they

cannot relate to their surrounding world. Salinger writes about Franny and

Zooey, the youngest siblings of seven, in his novel. The younger Glass children

are disgusted by society and try to turn to their own forms of religion to be able

to accept those people they deem phony.

Franny and Zooey are disgusted by a society that thrives for themselves

which they cannot relate. This is a view of the American Dream which is brought

forth by a vision of innocence and the reality of guilt (Hassan 259). The contrast

between innocence and reality creates a great struggle between idealism and the

preventing authority. This struggle can lead the protagonist to madness and

suicide (Gross 263-4). The reader sees this happen to Seymour Glass. Zooey

believes that because of the intellectual exposure that he received from his

brothers, he has been made a freak to society. Zooey confesses, "We're freaks...

Those two bastards got us nice and early and made us into (people with)...

freakish standards. We're the tattooed lady... never going to have a minute's

peace, the rest of our lives, till everybody else is tattooed, too" (Salinger 139).

This demonstrates that Zooey cannot relate to other people, who are not tattooed

like himself.

Bessie's observation on the unhappiness and anti-sociability of her

children gives the reader a better view point into her family. Only someone who

is part of the Glass children on a common basis would recognize and understand

thieir manner. She is very much part of the actual world (Magil 1806.) Her most

outstanding achievement, besides her vaudevillian career, is that she has raised

seven exceptional children. Bessie notes that her children's education is

worthless if it does not make them happy. This is further proof that Bessie is very

much a member of the common world (Alsen 62.) She observes how Zooey

alienates the people he cannot relate to. She tells him "You make people

nervous... You either take to somebody or you don't. If you do, then you do all

the talking and nobody can get in a word... if you don't... you sit around like

death itself and let the person talk themselves into a hole" (Salinger 98.) Where

Bessie's greatest fault is that she tries to do what all other parents want to do,

she wants to fix Franny with chicken broth. She also relies on psychoanalysis to

cure Franny's soul sickness (L. Unger 565). Bessie also observes of her son that

Zooey "doesn't know how to talk to people... (he doesn't) like... (or) love..."

(Salinger 99.) Bessie Glass helps the reader know that there is a way to "decode"

the Glass children. This shows that she is not responsible for turning her

children into freaks, but she understands and can ignore urge to not conform.

Instead of conforming and wanting the same wants as their peers, Franny

and Zooey believe that they can find some better insight into the world. Their

brother, Seymour, dies so they can live. Seymour realizes that he has taken up

too much knowledge, and he is not fit to come back out into the world (Galloway

446). The education he gave to his siblings was with the best intentions, but later

he realized what damage he had done. This catalyzes Franny and Zooey's secret

society. This includes everyone but the creative types and professors. An

exception is made for their family members with college degrees and bookshelves

that indicate a "democratic culture" (McCarthy 34). Exceptions such as these

make it difficult for the Glass's to relate to anyone else, and especially those

outside their secret unphony society. Zooey expresses his hatred for the

intellectuals and literary scribes in the colleges. "Phooey, I say, on all white-shoe

college boys who edit their literary magazines. Give me and honest con man any

day" (Salinger 98). This shows that Zooey does not want to conform to a society

with these desires and stereotypes. This also is a perfect definition of how the

Glass children, Franny and Zooey, want to separate themselves from their peers.

Franny explores the phoniness of the world and self, but these same

sources of insight and stability let her come to terms with herself and the world

(Unger 564). Along with these terms she has realized that there is an ugliness in

the human ego. Franny states, "That's why I quit the Theater Department. Just

because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept every body else's values... I am

sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and

everybody else that wants to make some kind of splash" (Salinger 30). This

indicates that Franny discovers the phoniness and ego in other people. She does

not want to develop an ego like her peers in the theater department.

Both Franny and Zooey turn to religion as a way to feel emotionally and

intellectually superior to their peers. One of the most unifying comments of all

critics is the relation to Zen in Franny and Zooey. In Zen Buddhism the life of the

mystic is only temporarily one of isolation for after achievement of satory (the

state of total enlightenment and consciousness) that the goal of Zen Buddhism is

finally realized. Then the enlightened man can re-enter society to perform good

works (Galloway 446). Professor Daisets Suzuki of Colombia University was said

to have influenced Salinger greatly. Suzuki states, "..the basic idea of Zen is to

come in touch with the inner workings of being and to do this in the most direct

way possible without resorting to anything external or superadded... Zen is the

ultimate fact of all philosophy and religion" (Magill 2044). These elements are

realized in Franny and Zooey which helps both of them turn to the reality. The

mysticism is treated as a "fever", an isolating and unfruitful discipline that leads

man away from significant work (Galloway 445). Franny experiences her "fever" in

Sticklers. She tries to snap out of it, but all she can do is isolate herself further.

In Franny and Zooey, the place of isolation is the family bathroom. Franny goes

into the ladies room at Stickers to cry and read the Jesus prayer. Zooey reads

his letter that Buddy wrote him hoping to be grounded by something and to find

a suggestion on what to tell his suffering sister (Geismar 94). This also shows

that they are both looking for something to ground them. For Zooey he is reading

the letter to find something to help his sister, because the letter seems to help

him cope. Franny is unable to cope with the Jesus Prayer, because in reality she

is only doing it for selfish reasons.

In a society personified by her casually egotistical boyfriend, Lane Coutell,

Franny wants to keep her "spiritual integrity" and to live a spiritual life in this

conceited society (Magill 2044). Zooey points out, "What do you think you're

doing with the Jesus Prayer... You talk about piling up treasure-- money property,

culture, knowledge... In going ahead with the Jesus Prayer... aren't you trying to

lay up some kind of treasure... something that is just as negotiable as all those

other more material things? Or does the fact that it's a prayer make it all the

difference" (Salinger 148.) Zooey clearly points out to Franny, by saying the

Jesus Prayer, Franny is trying to covet spiritual treasures for herself, same as the

disgusted with people and egoisms. Franny wants to not turn into the egotistical

people that she hates, but in order to do this she must learn to love them as well.

After Zooey tries to sympathize with Franny, he then attempts to convince his

sister that she is trying to see Christ directly and "lay up" spiritual treasures for

herself. She later bursts out into tears for what he says is too painful for her to

hear. Later Zooey suggests that she should try seeing Christ through ordinary

people (Magill 2044).

This story demonstrates Zooey's supreme effort to help his sister cope with

a phony world. His undershirt becomes sweat drenched. Zooey understands

Franny's anguish because he has traveled this road himself (L. Unger 564). This

is a religious journey Zooey has made before. It is alluded in Buddy's letter when

he writes, "Although I did hear from a gossipy little snip in one of my classes that

you had a reputation in your college dorm for going off and sitting in meditation

for ten hours at a time..." (Salinger 66-7). This shows that Zooey was affected by

spiritualism and the same questions that Franny has. When Zooey makes this

journey, which he does frequently. Zooey can return by his own strength. He

goes on his own religious pilgrimage or journey. Franny gets stuck trying to

return (L. Unger 566). This also demonstrates how Zooey turned to religion to

find answers about his brother's suicide and the questions about his education.

In reality this story is about two God-lovers learning to accept normal

unspiritual uninspired people (Alsen 57). Zooey and Franny realize this almost

simultaneously when Zooey declares, "There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't

Seymour's Fat Lady.... don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Christ

himself..." (Salinger 202). The Glass's realize that they are equal to their selfish

peers, because they desire something more out of the world. This is similar to

how their phony people covet their material and intellectual possessions. The

Glass's only love themselves and their family who are equally intellectually and

spiritually enlightened. They can only try to bring themselves to forgive the rest

of the world after condemning it. (Grunwald xix). The three-martini snail eating

men such as Lane Coutell are no longer people but symbols. They are also

represented by the Fat Lady (Kazin 297). The Glass's do not understand how to

communicate with the outside world. The Glass family tries to ritually wash away

the world's guilt, like the Christians and the Zen Buddhists did. This is compared

to a baptism. We see this as Zooey is bathing in the family commode, and when

Franny is sleeping on the couch. It is said that she was bathing in the sunlight.

"...(T)he sun.... was behaving beautifully... Sunshine, in fact, bathed the entire

afghan (which Franny had wrapped around her)" (Salinger 123-124.) This shows

that symbolistically that the Glass's search for more meaning in their lives. This

has aspects of the Glass's synthetic religion being practiced. This resolution and

forgiveness is displayed because the Glass's are introspective and they hate

phonies and have a great verbal skill (Magill 2042). Their enlightenment makes

it difficult to love the phonies, this does not have to do with their "spiritual pride

or guilt." Moreover there is a tearing of the sympathetic bond, there is a love

(Kazin 296).

Franny learns to accept those around her because in actuality they are just

as sanctified as Christ himself (Updike 85). As Zooey tells her, "There isn't

anyone anywhere who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady" (Salinger 201). He is telling her

that technically everyone is a member of the phony society. This is the same

society that disgusts the both of them. "As one reads, one sees that 'Franny'

takes place is what is recognizably our world; in 'Zooey' we move into a dream

world whose zealously animated details only emphasize an essential unreality"

(Updike 85).

Franny and Zooey learn to love those that they despise in society through

religious enlightenment. This is demonstrated mostly through personal

revelation. This realization that could never occur if both Franny and Zooey had

not come to the conclusion to love their flawed fellow man and to consider

themselves members of the human race. Children grow up even the geniuses

children. In doing so they gain a certain form of maturity. If they understand

what the normal adult understands at four, then what will they understand at 40.

Possibly this has attributes to do about one was raised, but further is the

understanding of religion for the world. Despite who attends church and who is a

professed atheist one has to put these people in their groups for their own piece

of mind. Even though one finds themself better than the group they have created

for them, they still might be able to love their